Some very sad news :(

My kitty cat Rex passed away this weekend. :( He was sick last week, but we were under the impression that he had some food allergies. He recovered within a few days so it's quite the shock that he passed away. We aren't too sure what happened, but there is a good chance it was a seizure. He's been living with my parents since I moved out, so he was truly grandmas boy. She's taking it pretty well, but I know we are all going to really miss "Mr. Personality."

Metro Detroit Bride and Jewelry

Yesterday I picked up this seasons Metro Detroit Bride. These types of bridal magazines are my favorite because everything inside of them is local. This month there was a fun little surprise:

A little blurb about our chapel with a picture! Oh I can't wait!


Also in the magazine was some pictures from a couples wedding where the bride wore a ribbon headband. I originally wanted one, and then changed my mind to wanting to wear a flower comb, but now I'm kind of changing my mind back.... I'm thinking about wearing one with a cuff on my wrist and a pair of stud earrings.


Rhinestones:





Faux Pearl:



I kind of like the rhinestone ones better. What do you guys think?

Picture post!

Today I got to talk with our wedding planner at the Henry Ford. If I thought the folks at shutterbooth were nice, they don't have anything on her! She's EXCELLENT! I'm really excited to be working with her. We were trying to come up with a date for food tasting, but since I'm not working nights next month, I don't have ANY of the days off that they do them on. Boo! Someone may be working a day for me towards the end of next month, but if not we will have to do it some time in April.

Other than that, not too much has changed since my last update with my to-do list, but I thought it would be fun to post some different (mostly random!) pictures that I have saved on my in my wedding folder.




I'd like to make a fun little banner kind of like this, but that says thank you that we could use to put on our thank you cards. I love that second picture!

Getting ready, looks like fun! Source: Made U Look Photography.

An actual plate of food from a Henry Ford wedding! Source: Arising Images

Pink haired bride! It's so hard to find pictures of people with bangs like mine.

60'sish make-up. I love it! Source: Ban.do

Hydrangeas in a square vase. We're doing square vase centerpieces, probably not completely hydrangeas though!
Bride and Groom chairs! So cute!

I like this type of table set up, and hey, our tables will be wooden too!

Almost 6 months out!

According to the little ticker I put up on the blog, Ronnie and I are almost exactly 6 months away from our wedding date. We already have so much done, but after talking with my mom yesterday I thought it would be a nice idea to make a cohesive list of what exactly I have left to do. Nothing is in any order of importance:

• Get the bridesmaid dresses situated - According to David's, the absolute latest I should do this is 10 weeks prior to the wedding. I'd like to take my Michigan girls in sometime next month to at least see how everyone feels in the dress, and then they can order it sometime before the 10 week mark.
• Get my alterations started - I'm 99% sure that I won't be going with David's to have this done. They wanted to charge Christina $100 dollars (!!!) to have the babies flower girl dress altered so I'm going to go somewhere else. Auntie Kay gave me a card for someone she works with who does alterations, I just need to call her.
  
• Write our ceremony - I've kind of started this, but I'm a bit of a procrastinator.
  
• Finalize invitations and get them addressed & mailed out - Still have plenty of time for this. I don't think they will even be sent to me until about 3 months before the wedding.
• Videographer? - I wasn't sure if we were going to do this, but mom says Dad's friend Bill might be able to help us out.
  
• Nail down rehearsal dinner plans & morning after brunch
  
• Hair trial (and probably some nice highlights 2 weeks before the wedding)
• Finish our registry
• Determine wedding dinner menu/go for tasting - I think the Henry Ford does this about 3 months ahead of time.
  
• Settle wedding night transportation - I need to get with the Dearborn Inn and see what the latest they will pick up guests is, and how all of that works.
• Get all of our music situated. i.e. First dance, daddy/daughter dance. Make sure that all of the requests from our website are given to the DJ.
  
• Finalize my accessories
• Fill out our wedding worksheet and give it to our planner at the Henry Ford - This is the worksheet I talked about forever ago that made me nervous about how much we have left to do. Now it should be a piece of cake.
  
• Figure out honeymoon plans - will we make any dining reservations for our time in Disney World, and what shore excursions should we do on the cruise? Actually, I can start making dining reservations next week so Ronnie and I have to plan what we want to do, but I don't think we can do anything for. the cruise until we are 3 months out
  

It looks like a lot doesn't it? I've actually already had a few dreams already about planning going wrong but really it's a list of stuff that's really easy to do. For fun, here is everything that is already done:

• Created a wedding plan - colors, formality etc.
  
• Ceremony and Reception sites booked.
• Guest list compiled and pretty much so finalized.
• Officiant - Yay Ronnie Sr!
  
• Save the Date magnets ordered and mailed out.
• DJ booked.
• Flowers planned and Florist picked.
  
• Photographer booked. Engagement shots done.
• Gown purchased.
• Wedding website completed.
  
• Booked Cake baker.
• Honeymoon arrangements.
• Mens Formalwear is planned. Ronnie is already fitted.
• Invitations booked. - invitations, programs, escort cards will all be done by our stationer.
  
• Wedding bands purchased.
• Hair stylist / Makeup artist booked.
• Favors - Photobooth. They are also doing our guestbook and helping us get pictures from our guests with Eventis.

The done list doesn't look as long as the not done list now that I've typed it up but all of the booking and hard stuff is out of the way. Phew, I hope I'm not forgetting anything! Google documents just came out with some awesome wedding spreadsheets that I fully intend to take advantage of sometime soon. No more using notepad to compile my lists!

Move hips and hands when the band plays the dada polka, you might loose a few pounds.

Well it's been about a month since I've started running every weekday. I have to admit that I have missed a few days since my last post where I was saying that I only missed one day, but I've been doing a lot better than I thought I would. I haven't exactly changed my eating habits (Damn you meijer and your DELICIOUS valentines day frosted sugar cookies!) but I've been seeing some pretty good results.

I should start by saying, I have no idea how much I weigh. I have a pretty good idea, but we don't own a scale and I don't want to freak myself out so I've decided to measure myself every week and take it from there. I think I have a pretty decent self image, but there was 3 areas that I was hoping that working out would help. Those three areas are my biceps (or my heybabies as Mrs. Dee would say) my waist and my thighs. I'm happy to report that I've lost an inch from each of my biceps and almost an inch from my waist!! The thighs haven't done a darn thing, but that's okay I'm remaining optimistic. My schedule next month changed (no midnights. boo!) so I'm not too sure how I'm going to get my running in, but I'll try to figure out something.


I know that this was a post about working out, but The Henry Ford just posted the Maple Cheesecake recipe from the dinner we just went to on Friday and it was the BEST cheesecake we've EVER had! I think I might try to make it next week. You can find it here.

Happy Valentines Day!

It's hard to believe that it's ALREADY Valentines Day! This year we are celebrating a little differently because I have to work tonight. I got a very cute Mickey Mouse stuffed animal and tickets to see Disney on Ice on the 27th from Ronnie, and on Friday I took Ronnie to the 'Local Roots Winter Dining Celebration' inside the Eagle Tavern in Greenfield Village. It was a 5 course dinner where everything was made/grown locally. I'm still dreaming about how good the Cheddar Cheese soup was! While we were there we got to meet Nick Seccia, the executive chef at the Henry Ford. I wanted to take some pictures but it was pretty dark inside of the Eagle Tavern and we were so busy eating and talking that I completely forgot. Anyway, the food was so good that I can't wait to go and get our menu down pat.

Since Greenfield Village is closed for the season, we got to take the back route to get to the Eagle Tavern. The parking lot we parked in is the one that will be used for our wedding, so now we have a really clear idea of how that will work. We also drove over to the Hampton Inn, where Ronnie's Groomsmen will be staying. It's a lot closer than we had originally thought so that was a nice surprise!


The cake poll is coming to a close, and it looks like chocolate, yellow and strawberry are the forerunners! Thank you for helping out! Now I just need to figure out what kind of design we like the best!

Cake dilema

As I'm sure you saw in yesterdays picture post, my mom and I went cake tasting! We had to drive about an hour away to get to the place, but I think it was really worth it! I didn't put down any kind of deposit or anything, because I wasn't 100% sure what we wanted. To be honest, I left a little more confused than when we got there because there are SO MANY different types and combinations of cake out there! This is where you, gentle reader will come in handy! I think we have 3 layers of the cake pretty much so set, but I honestly have no idea what kind of cake people would prefer. If you would be so kind, please take a moment to answer my little poll on delicious cake so I know what people like. You can even pick more than one. Yum! Cake!

What Kind of Cake is the Yummiest?

I'm not even going to bother with the cake fillings, I don't want to overwhelm everyone! Thank you in advance!

Finished one of Ronnie's socks

Finished one of the socks today, I'm pretty pleased with the results. Ronnie already seems a little embarrassed by them lol. The angle is a little weird, you can thank Ronnie for that, but you get the point.